Chelsea Soccer Battles State Ranked Gull Lake

The Chelsea girls’ soccer team gave 3 time defending Division 2 State Champion all it could handle last week as the Bulldogs fell 3-2.

Chelsea was timid at first against Gull Lake, playing on their heels for the first ten minutes and falling behind 1-0. The Bulldogs started to pick things up and nearly scored the equalizer just before halftime, but the Gull Lake keeper made a huge save.

Within the first 3 minutes of the half, Chelsea’s GK Natasha McElrath, had the ball at her feet and passed out to teammate, Alexa Quintana, who then found an early penetrating pass for Delaney Krause to run onto. Delaney got into the box before coming under pressure, beat her opponent 1 v 1 then hit her shot past the Gull Lake keeper to level the score at 1 – 1.

Gaining early momentum, Chelsea then continued putting Gull Lake under pressure, winning balls in the midfield and attacking the Gull Lake Defense. It was Katelyn McKinley who picked up the ball in midfield and found a great seem to play through for Alexa Quintana, who ran past her opponent and dribbled in behind for a 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper. Alexa placed a great shot past her to the back post to give Chelsea the 2-1 lead.

Gul Lake picked up a loose ball and drilled a shot past McElrath to tie the game and with five minutes left.

The teams battled back and forth, but with five minutes left Gull Lake broke through for a breakaway and found the corner of the net for the game winner.

“It was fun to watch our girls rise to the occasion and play one of their best games all season against a well known and well coached program like Gull Lake,” Coach Shawn Hayes said.

Chelsea won a pair of SEC White contests earlier in the week.

The Bulldogs took down Tecumseh 7-0 and beat Adrian 2-0 in a storm shortened contest. Kylie Kuebler and Quintana score goals for Chelsea against Adrian.

The JV team improved to 10-2 on the season with 8-0 wins over Tecumseh and Adrian.

Leading the JV team in scoring was Hannah Wyatt with 3 goals and two assists. Caitlin Dusenbury added a pair of goals and an assist while Mallory Downer added a goal and assist herself. Helena Schultz and Anna Regis also added a goal in an impressive 8-0 rout of the Adrian JV team.